A journalist is looking for compers to interview for a national newspaper - and she has promised that unlike some recent articles, it will be a sympathetic article showing people in a positive light. If you think you might be able to help, there is a £250 fee for the person she uses. Here is the information
FEE: £250 SUPER COMPERS ... I'm looking for case studies of people have who turning entering competitions into a second job or even a full-time job for a piece for a national newspaper. I'm looking for men and women who have won thousands of pounds worth of prizes. Please get in touch if you can help. My email address is rachelhalliwellfeatures@yahoo.co.uk
Please contact her directly if you would like to be considered. I know she would like to write the feature as soon as possible so I don't want to introduce any delays by havng to relay messages to her.
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
Tuesday, 21 February 2012
Your chance to win a £50 Experience Day
Don't you just love getting out and doing something completely different? Not just wandering round shops or strolling through the countryside, but doing something that is a real treat - maybe learning a new skill, being pampered or getting your adrenalin flowing? Well, the people at Experience Days have got dozens of great ideas for you to try. Pampering days, gourmet treats, driving experiences, days out, weekend breaks - they have something for everybody, and with prices ranging from under £20 to over £500 there's something to suit any budget too.
My husband loves to see places from the air - do you remember how much he loved the seaplane trip when I won a holiday in Vancouver? So I would love to treat him to a helicopter flight over the Lake District - one of our favourite parts of Britain.
Experience Days have a £50 gift voucher to give away to one lucky visitor to this blog. There are lots of things you could do with the voucher - how about a chocolate making workshop?
You could even create your own perfume!
You can have up to two entries using the Rafflecopter widget below. For the first one, read the instructions in the widget that tell you what to write in your comment, then comment and go back to the widget and click on the "Enter" button.
For the second one, you'll need to have a Twitter account. Click the "Tweet about the giveaway" button and you will see a little bird saying Tweet - click on him to automatically generate a tweet. Then you need to find the URL of your tweet. If you are using a Twitter client such as Tweet deck, or are on Old Twitter, all you need to do is to find the tweet in your timeline and click on the time at the bottom. It will open up on a page of it's own; copy the URL from the address bar and paste it into the Rafflecopter box. But if you are using New Twitter, you will need to take a couple more steps to get the tweet onto its own page. Find your tweet then click "Open" at the side of it. Then click "details" on the bottom right of the tweet. That will take you to the page whose URL you can copy. (I think they've "simplified" Twitter by making everything take three times as long)
I promise, that all takes MUCH less time to do than it took me to explain it, but lots of people have got the URL of the Tweet part wrong in my Winnin Post competition so I thought I'd better include step-by-step instructions because if I can't find your tweet I can't count your entry.
So as not to get confused with any other competition I'm running, this competition will close at midnight on February 28th (or as near to that as Rafflecopter will allow!). UK entries only, please, and the prize will be sent directly to the winner by the promoter.
No bulk, automated or third party entries - hopefully they wouldn't get past the widget anyway!
Note - you should see the widget immediately below here. If you can't see it, try refreshing the page a couple of times until it appears!
Experience Days have a £50 gift voucher to give away to one lucky visitor to this blog. There are lots of things you could do with the voucher - how about a chocolate making workshop?
Or if you are feeling more adventurous, a 4 x 4 driving session? I've been to a session on this very track, and it is great fun, especially if you like getting muddy!
For the second one, you'll need to have a Twitter account. Click the "Tweet about the giveaway" button and you will see a little bird saying Tweet - click on him to automatically generate a tweet. Then you need to find the URL of your tweet. If you are using a Twitter client such as Tweet deck, or are on Old Twitter, all you need to do is to find the tweet in your timeline and click on the time at the bottom. It will open up on a page of it's own; copy the URL from the address bar and paste it into the Rafflecopter box. But if you are using New Twitter, you will need to take a couple more steps to get the tweet onto its own page. Find your tweet then click "Open" at the side of it. Then click "details" on the bottom right of the tweet. That will take you to the page whose URL you can copy. (I think they've "simplified" Twitter by making everything take three times as long)
I promise, that all takes MUCH less time to do than it took me to explain it, but lots of people have got the URL of the Tweet part wrong in my Winnin Post competition so I thought I'd better include step-by-step instructions because if I can't find your tweet I can't count your entry.
So as not to get confused with any other competition I'm running, this competition will close at midnight on February 28th (or as near to that as Rafflecopter will allow!). UK entries only, please, and the prize will be sent directly to the winner by the promoter.
No bulk, automated or third party entries - hopefully they wouldn't get past the widget anyway!
Note - you should see the widget immediately below here. If you can't see it, try refreshing the page a couple of times until it appears!
Friday, 17 February 2012
The Twitter followers you don't want
Have you noticed that recently more and more "dodgy" people have tried to follow you on Twitter? Often people who use the "F" word in their biography - not really the sort of person most compers expect to chat to on a regular basis!
Several people have asked me what they can do about them and other unwanted followers, and whether there is a way to force somebody to unfollow you.
The answer is, there is no good way for a comper to prevent somebody following them. if you are NOT a comper, read on - I've got better news for you later! So what do you do when one of these "ladies" follows you?
Don't go and look at their Twitter page, don't follow them back and under NO circumstances click on any links in their message or their bio. They want you to either follow them back so they can send you direct messages advertising the sort of services they wouldn't be allowed to openly advertise on Twitter, or to go to websites which will be pay-to-subscribe sites that contain the sort of material which really isn't very apt, original and amusing and doesn't give away any prizes! In fact Twitter picks up accounts like this and closes them down very quickly - so quickly that if you have your Twitter account set up to send you an email whenever somebody follows you, in the few minutes it takes between them following you and when the email would have gone out, the lady in question has lost her account and the email never gets sent. So if you are at all worried about possibly being followed by such people, you might feel happier only ever checking the emails from Twitter and not actually looking at your followers list online.
What about other people who follow you that you don't want to see? Spammers, people you dislike or people you are simply not interested in. Well, once again, the most sensible thing to do is ignore them. If you are not following them back, they can't send you direct messages, but they would still be able to read your tweets and send you @ messages even if they weren't following you, so it makes no difference to you. And of course if you are getting close to following 2,000 people, you need all the followers you can get so that you will be able to carry on following new people - you can read about Twitter's following limits in "Getting round Twitter's following limit"
You might decide to block somebody you really dislike - but did you realise that although somebody you have blocked can't follow you or send you @ messages, they can still read and retweet your tweets?
If you protect your tweets, it means that only people who you have approved can follow you and see your tweets. But if you are a comper, you should never do this because promoters won't know you have entered their competitions, so you will never win anything!
There is a service available called True Twit which sends your new followers a message asking them to visit a website to prove they are real. If you are not a comper, this could be useful to you, but if you ARE a comper I would caution you against using it. This is because very often, the promoter of a competition will follow you so that you can send them a direct message with your name and address. In fact sometimes the first inkling you get that you have won is when the promoter of a newly-closed competition follows you. But if they get a True Twit validation message, they are very likely to decide that it is all to much trouble, and drop the idea of giving you the prize, redrawing the winner and following them instead. So if you use True Twit, you could miss out on a fair proportion of your potential wins.
It is a better service if you are not a comper, but even then you might have reservations about it. The Premium service, which allows registered users to bypass having to validate themselves to other people, costs a measly little $20.00 a year - many spammers would think this was a small investment for a service that makes them look "authentic" and leads people to trust them!
In summary, the best thing to do about unwanted followers of any kind is to ignore them. if they like what you are saying, they will keep following. if they don't, they'll go away. Think of Twitter as being like a crowded train, and your followers as the other passengers. You can't get rid of them, but they have as much right to be there as you have, and you're not obliged to interact with them. And eventually they will get off, or you will all reach your destination without troubling each other.
Several people have asked me what they can do about them and other unwanted followers, and whether there is a way to force somebody to unfollow you.
The answer is, there is no good way for a comper to prevent somebody following them. if you are NOT a comper, read on - I've got better news for you later! So what do you do when one of these "ladies" follows you?
IGNORE THEM
Don't go and look at their Twitter page, don't follow them back and under NO circumstances click on any links in their message or their bio. They want you to either follow them back so they can send you direct messages advertising the sort of services they wouldn't be allowed to openly advertise on Twitter, or to go to websites which will be pay-to-subscribe sites that contain the sort of material which really isn't very apt, original and amusing and doesn't give away any prizes! In fact Twitter picks up accounts like this and closes them down very quickly - so quickly that if you have your Twitter account set up to send you an email whenever somebody follows you, in the few minutes it takes between them following you and when the email would have gone out, the lady in question has lost her account and the email never gets sent. So if you are at all worried about possibly being followed by such people, you might feel happier only ever checking the emails from Twitter and not actually looking at your followers list online.
What about other people who follow you that you don't want to see? Spammers, people you dislike or people you are simply not interested in. Well, once again, the most sensible thing to do is ignore them. If you are not following them back, they can't send you direct messages, but they would still be able to read your tweets and send you @ messages even if they weren't following you, so it makes no difference to you. And of course if you are getting close to following 2,000 people, you need all the followers you can get so that you will be able to carry on following new people - you can read about Twitter's following limits in "Getting round Twitter's following limit"
You might decide to block somebody you really dislike - but did you realise that although somebody you have blocked can't follow you or send you @ messages, they can still read and retweet your tweets?
If you protect your tweets, it means that only people who you have approved can follow you and see your tweets. But if you are a comper, you should never do this because promoters won't know you have entered their competitions, so you will never win anything!
There is a service available called True Twit which sends your new followers a message asking them to visit a website to prove they are real. If you are not a comper, this could be useful to you, but if you ARE a comper I would caution you against using it. This is because very often, the promoter of a competition will follow you so that you can send them a direct message with your name and address. In fact sometimes the first inkling you get that you have won is when the promoter of a newly-closed competition follows you. But if they get a True Twit validation message, they are very likely to decide that it is all to much trouble, and drop the idea of giving you the prize, redrawing the winner and following them instead. So if you use True Twit, you could miss out on a fair proportion of your potential wins.
It is a better service if you are not a comper, but even then you might have reservations about it. The Premium service, which allows registered users to bypass having to validate themselves to other people, costs a measly little $20.00 a year - many spammers would think this was a small investment for a service that makes them look "authentic" and leads people to trust them!
In summary, the best thing to do about unwanted followers of any kind is to ignore them. if they like what you are saying, they will keep following. if they don't, they'll go away. Think of Twitter as being like a crowded train, and your followers as the other passengers. You can't get rid of them, but they have as much right to be there as you have, and you're not obliged to interact with them. And eventually they will get off, or you will all reach your destination without troubling each other.
Thursday, 16 February 2012
Hand made Thursday - The Crafty Comper
Last year was my year for winning craft goodies. In fact I hardly had to buy any all year. My wins included:
Here are a few cards I made with some of the loot:
I've already started my crafty wins for 2012, as last week a CD of really cute designs arrived - very useful with a 2½year old in the family and another grandchild due soon. I've already managed to make a couple of cards from it
If you'd like to be a crafty winner too, keep your eye open for competitions on craft suppliers' websites and Facebook pages, as well as blogs and of course the monthly craft magazines. My comping and crafting friend Winn Sommor, whose latest puzzle booklet you can win here , tells me she has won lots of lovely craft prizes from writing to the letters pages of her favourite craft magazines too.
Now I need to win a bigger house to store all my crafting stash in!
I'm joining in with Handmade Thursday on White Lily Green's blog with this post.
- a pack of Christmas Dufex designs
- a bumper pack of Christmas embellishments
- a sheet of unmounted stamps
- a set of flower and leaf punches
- a tag punch with a set of matching stamps and an inkpad
- a huge jar of assorted buttons
- a scrapbooking kit
- almost 1,000 (yes, a thousand) sheets of 12 x 12 paper and card, in four separate competitions
Here are a few cards I made with some of the loot:
Now I need to win a bigger house to store all my crafting stash in!
I'm joining in with Handmade Thursday on White Lily Green's blog with this post.
Tuesday, 14 February 2012
A new way to draw a winner on Twitter - and the winner of my birthday competition
Running - and entering - retweet to win competitions on Twitter can be a very hit and miss affair. There doesn't seem to be any 100% reliable way of collecting entries and knowing exactly who has entered, and if you have entered a competition you can never be 100% sure your entry has been received.
People are sometimes left questioning promoters who announce winners - was the draw done fairly? Or did they just choose the last person to enter/the person with the prettiest avatar/their sister? Even a promoter who is determined to do everything by the book can be puzzled by the unpredictability of Twitter's various functions.
Take for instance the "Seventh Birthday" competition I ran on Twitter a few days ago. I bookmarked the competition tweet - Twitter tells me that it has been retweeted 95 times. So I should have received 95 entries. I could only see who the last 15 entrants were, and I couldn't find any way to access a list of the other 80.
I set my account to send an email every time the tweet was retweeted. I only got 33 emails.
I checked my Activity and @mentions regularly to look for entries. I found about 40 entries.
I also included a hashtag and ran a hashtag search. It gave me just 17 results, including some (but not all) of my own tweets.
However, a new system has been set up that will get round all those problems. It can pick up on every instance of a retweet of any given tweet, and what's more will perform a random draw so there is no danger of an entrant being favoured or losing out because their name or avatar. The system is called Twitterdraw and has been set up by Iain Haywood of Competition Hunter
It can draw a random follower from all your followers, a random retweeter of your chosen tweet or a random tweeter of a given hashtag. And it takes a matter of seconds.
I used Twitterdraw to choose the winner of my competition, and it pulled Vicky Robinson, @xVickyRx out of the cyberhat. It showed me a link to her profile and I could see that she had indeed retweeted, even though she hadn't showed up in my mentions, hashtag search or emails. So without Twitterdraw, even though she had entered correctly, she wouldn't have been in the draw.
I was delighted with Twitterdraw and would have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone wanting a simple and fair way to choose a random winner on Twitter.
Compers, if ever you feel a Twitter competition has been drawn unfairly, why not suggest Twitterdraw to the promoter?
People are sometimes left questioning promoters who announce winners - was the draw done fairly? Or did they just choose the last person to enter/the person with the prettiest avatar/their sister? Even a promoter who is determined to do everything by the book can be puzzled by the unpredictability of Twitter's various functions.
Take for instance the "Seventh Birthday" competition I ran on Twitter a few days ago. I bookmarked the competition tweet - Twitter tells me that it has been retweeted 95 times. So I should have received 95 entries. I could only see who the last 15 entrants were, and I couldn't find any way to access a list of the other 80.
I set my account to send an email every time the tweet was retweeted. I only got 33 emails.
I checked my Activity and @mentions regularly to look for entries. I found about 40 entries.
I also included a hashtag and ran a hashtag search. It gave me just 17 results, including some (but not all) of my own tweets.
However, a new system has been set up that will get round all those problems. It can pick up on every instance of a retweet of any given tweet, and what's more will perform a random draw so there is no danger of an entrant being favoured or losing out because their name or avatar. The system is called Twitterdraw and has been set up by Iain Haywood of Competition Hunter
It can draw a random follower from all your followers, a random retweeter of your chosen tweet or a random tweeter of a given hashtag. And it takes a matter of seconds.
I used Twitterdraw to choose the winner of my competition, and it pulled Vicky Robinson, @xVickyRx out of the cyberhat. It showed me a link to her profile and I could see that she had indeed retweeted, even though she hadn't showed up in my mentions, hashtag search or emails. So without Twitterdraw, even though she had entered correctly, she wouldn't have been in the draw.
I was delighted with Twitterdraw and would have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone wanting a simple and fair way to choose a random winner on Twitter.
Compers, if ever you feel a Twitter competition has been drawn unfairly, why not suggest Twitterdraw to the promoter?
Monday, 13 February 2012
QUICK! Enter by the 14th for a lovely weekend break.
I've just been shopping and spotted "WIN!" stickers on packs of fresh duck in Waitrose - and incidentally grabbed myself a bargain for our Valentine's dinner as they were half price. I'll be slow roasting it and serving it with apple sauce and sage and onion stuffing and a bottle of rosé wine..... but I digress....
There's very little info on the outside of the sticker, but inside it tells you to go to www.gressinghamfoods.co.uk/love for a chance to win a luxury weekend break or one of three duck hampers.
The first prize is a two night break in Suffolk, at either The Salthouse Harbour Hotel in Ipswich or The Angel Hotel in Bury St Edmunds. Both look lovely! Dinner on one night is included, and the winner and three runners up will also get a hamper of duck products.
But hurry! The competition closes on February 14th.
There's very little info on the outside of the sticker, but inside it tells you to go to www.gressinghamfoods.co.uk/love for a chance to win a luxury weekend break or one of three duck hampers.
The first prize is a two night break in Suffolk, at either The Salthouse Harbour Hotel in Ipswich or The Angel Hotel in Bury St Edmunds. Both look lovely! Dinner on one night is included, and the winner and three runners up will also get a hamper of duck products.
But hurry! The competition closes on February 14th.
Sunday, 12 February 2012
"Birthday" cake!
This was sent to me by @MrsBun2002 Virtual Cake Decorator eCard
Thank you very much - calorie free and sugar free too! It's made my day.
Thank you very much - calorie free and sugar free too! It's made my day.
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